Page 6 of The Huntsman's Heart
Her body shifts as she reaches for the vial on the dresser. A moment later there’s the soft tinkle of glass as she sets it down again, and I feel the change in her instantly.
Hot, red blood flows through Melantha’s veins. I sense it, though it never warms me. Opening my eyes, I watch as withered skin repairs itself, plumping and blushing as the magic transforms her.
Now her face is that of a woman in the bloom of middle years. With high, firm cheekbones, thin, arched brows, and lush, redlips the color of the dire wolf blood she drank. She lifts a hand to her cheek and sighs. “Better.”
I step back and lift my hands, bending my fingers to loosen stiff joints. The mirror still shows the withered corpse.
“Where do you think you are going?”
With a sigh, I take the vial and tip the last of the monster’s blood onto my thumb, smearing it across the mirror until the blurred reflection shows the illusion too. Then I circle her chair and get on my knees. I can never decide if this or the spell itself is the worst part of the ritual. Yet they are as unavoidable as death ought to be. My punishment for trying to evade the hunter god’s arrow. Now the god of death smiles at me with his hollow grin as I clamber between her thighs and put my mouth to work to service the queen.
She slips a hand into my hair and tugs roughly, bringing my tongue to the place she wants me. I obey. I take no joy in the sour flavor of her dry cunt. All the blood of all the monsters in the forest could not make its taste regain the sweetness of youth and beauty. And nothing could induce me to do this for her, save the one thing she already possesses. The one thing I hunt and cannot find.
Her hand tightens in my hair, and I know she stares at her own face in the mirror as I make her cum. The spasms of her cunt finally subside, and I’m allowed to lift my head.
“At least you can make yourself useful that way,” she sneers. “Too bad your magic cannot rouse the pathetic thing that hangs between your legs.”
I stand and wipe the back of my hand across my mouth. I do not tell her my cock needs no magic to grow and swell to full, painful thickness. Not lately. Not when I think of Guinevere undressing for me. Melantha will never see it thus. “Will that be all?”
She gives it a final calculating look then dismisses me with a sigh. “You may go. Do not be late next week.”
I say nothing as I bow and stalk from the room.
How many more times must I debase myself before her? How many more weeks and months and years before I find what she stole from me and regain the power to end this charade?
Guinevere
The clash of swords in the square draws my attention from where I’m wandering in the rose garden in a rare patch of sun. Within the keep, Melantha and her ladies are embroidering pillows and composing sonnets in honor of the prince who will arrive in a sevennight. Unable to sit a moment longer and tolerate them congratulating me one more time, I left to take some air.
The sun dips behind a cloud again, and the transient warmth I felt on my shoulders disappears suddenly, leaving only the cutting cold of the winter air. I pull my fur collar up a little higher and turn toward the courtyard where the hunters are training with Alaric.
Training provides a rare opportunity to study him, and I find myself lingering to watch at the low wall which circles the garden.
His men move with rough, raw power, grunting and swinging their swords as they parry with each other or repeat hit after hit into heavy straw-filled bags or wooden blocks. Alaric stalks between them, correcting a movement, snapping at them when they aren’t fast enough, or simply watching in stony silence.
One of the hunters—a dark-haired man whose slender face looks younger than the others—swings the longsword, cutting into the upright log at a place lower than the other men.
Alaric stops. He gestures for the man’s sword. Then with a swift and cruelly efficient motion he lifts it and slices the log in two. The top of the wood drops to the ground with a dull thud.
“Take an ax and cut me five more pieces the same. Your training finishes when you have sent your sword through all five the way I just did and not before.”
The man starts. From the look of him he might be there all day and still not complete the task.
“The rest of you pack up and prepare to saddle up. We ride out before midday.” Sweeping his cloak around him Alaric turns and stalks toward the stable, and his men hurry to obey, leaving the young hunter searching through the wood pile for logs.
It’s a wonder more of them aren’t killed if that’s his method of training. The callous way he speaks to the men rankles me, but I’m forbidden to talk with them. I can’t even offer condolences to the young hunter.
Really, what does Alaric mean by being so condescending all the time? What makes him think he is so far above the rest of us?
Turning, I stalk back through the rose garden, pausing to gather a fallen flower. Something must have knocked it from the branch in full bloom. The petals are bright and soft. Its form plump and perfect. It is so perfect, if it had not fallen it would have been cropped by the royal gardeners for the queen’s chamber. I suppose there’s no tragedy that it fell since it would have been plucked anyway. Not allowed to spread its petals. Instead it will last in the full blush of its glory a day more and suddenly dry up until the petals grow dry and crunchy and brown.
Melantha allows no imperfect flowers in her vases. Any touched by frost or sun or wind are rejected. Only the most beautiful things are sent to the queen.
As I gather the fallen flower in my palm, I’m fixated by the softness of the petals. By their concentric swirls as they grow smaller and smaller into the tiny bud which hides at the center. I stroke a fingertip over an outside petal only to discover a tiny ridge of brown crusts its outer edge.
I pause in the act of plucking the imperfect petal from the flower. Why should I? Saved from the queen’s table, this flower is free to blossom in imperfection. Free to wear its tarnishes. Why make it suffer after death?
Instead, I tuck the flower at the corner of a stone bench, smiling to myself at the way the red of the petals livens the gray stone.
